AuthorTopic: GR#212 - Sturmkrähe - Anatomy (Read 7701 times)

Actually, for myself I'd say it's already pretty finished, but there might be a few spots which I got used to, since I worked on it a fairly long time.Another pair of eyes would be great for overlooking it.

« Last Edit: September 13, 2014, 10:35:05 am by Cyangmou »

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"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

wow looks great man. love all the textures and the colours. only thing that looks off to me is perhaps theres too much perspective applied to the nearest leg? like it looks a bit too long. and maybe the foot on that leg looks a bit like its turning against the knee

The stance of his left leg looks very awkward at the moment, if you want to keep the pose you currently have, with his left leg kind of outwards, you'll have to make it shorter and change a few things with how it's rotated, but I really think it'd be better to go for a relaxed stance.

There are some problems with the lighting source; from one point it seems like the lighting source is coming from the front left, as seen from the shadow (little tip, add a slightly darker tone on the edge between the shadow and the object it's cast off of; gives a little bit more depth), knee caps, his left arm, some parts of the polearm-like weapon, left pauldron and a few more details.

But then on the other hand it suggests that the lighting source is coming off of the front right, what is seen on almost the whole left part of the body (from our point of view), so for an instance the boots, his right arm and pauldron, the helmet (with the exception of the spike on the top of it), and again some parts of the polearm (mostly lower part).

You can go with either light source to fix it; I think it would require about the same amount of work. With my edit I went with the front left because it was a bit easier for me personally.

Can't really say anything about the shading and textures, you're doing a good job at it.

The head looks small, in both anatomy (considering the thickness of the material that covers it) and composition respects.A much larger beak would help making it the focus.

The piece might be drowning in detail, I'd love a few quieter eye-resting places in shadow, esp. in the areas of repetitive detail such as the ammo belt and fur.

The ammo belt should cast a shadow.

The weapon could use some wear and tear, rusty patches, dents and stains. The shaft has significant banding.

No AA at all?

Edit: funny how peeps see different things. Night is right about the arm, and actually it's worse than that: the whole shoulder line is horizontal (from our pov) whereas other similar lines at feet, knees, pelvis and elbows levels are not. It could be considered perspective from a shoulder-level pov, but it doesn't look like it (specifically, it would mean a closer pov which should be noticeable in other respects).This problem might even concern the head and eyes too.

There are some problems with the lighting source; from one point it seems like the lighting source is coming from the front left, as seen from the shadow (little tip, add a slightly darker tone on the edge between the shadow and the object it's cast off of; gives a little bit more depth), knee caps, his left arm, some parts of the polearm-like weapon, left pauldron and a few more details.

But then on the other hand it suggests that the lighting source is coming off of the front right, what is seen on almost the whole left part of the body (from our point of view), so for an instance the boots, his right arm and pauldron, the helmet (with the exception of the spike on the top of it), and again some parts of the polearm (mostly lower part).

You can go with either light source to fix it; I think it would require about the same amount of work. With my edit I went with the front left because it was a bit easier for me personally.

Night I don't really know the best way how to thank you, because your edits and words are always a real eye-opener for me and thanks to you I was able to look at it once more from a completely new perspective.The leg, the arm and the fur actually were my biggest trouble spots.The arm was drawn with a lot more foreshortening in the initial sketch, same applies to the legs.

For the lighting I am somewhat limited. I have to keep it lit from the front, that it works good, even if I mirror it (see spoiler) although I applied now a stronger topdown quality of the light and changed some troublespots - I hope this is now an acceptable compromise for the intended use.

The head looks small, in both anatomy (considering the thickness of the material that covers it) and composition respects.A much larger beak would help making it the focus.

Edit: funny how peeps see different things. Night is right about the arm, and actually it's worse than that: the whole shoulder line is horizontal (from our pov) whereas other similar lines at feet, knees, pelvis and elbows levels are not. It could be considered perspective from a shoulder-level pov, but it doesn't look like it (specifically, it would mean a closer pov which should be noticeable in other respects).This problem might even concern the head and eyes too.

the soldier uses heroic proportions - 8 head canon, I already increased the head size significantly in order to maintain the overall consistency. Also with the slight view from below I wanted to make him look bigger and scarier. The idea with the peak was great, as well as all other things you mentioned.I don't really want to go for rusty weapons. Those pieces of equipment are for their time pretty modern and high-tech. The soldiers are also an elite troop - they know how the keep their tools working.

For the leg, I don't really wanted to scrifice the s-curve although I turned it and changed the perspective slightly, although more with changing the size of the rear knee-armor and increasing the rear legs size. Think overall it's now much better.Do you think that the front leg still need to be decreased in length?

aside from that I edited the overall lighting, changed the shoulder line, edited the rear arm, simplified the fur and applied tons of little things of the really helpful edit, by far too much to mention, but I also added a gif for better illustration.

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"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

Ah, I see now why you made the lighting like that, in this case it's fine. Although, if the shadow is shown in the scene it would probably be better if you make it somewhat more.. in the middle, if you catch what I'm saying.

About the leg; I think that if you're really that inclined to keeping the S curve, make it a little bit more subtle and straight (by straight I mean that it doesn't go off as much to the right), so a bit more like this:

Just on a side note, the blade on the polearm just doesn't quite look right to me, I'm not sure if jaggedness is intentional, but I think it'd look a lot better with a clear edge. If you look at my first edit, you can see I made it pretty clear, especially with the lighting source coming from the left which makes it even more apparent.

Hope it's clear without more explanation =)Of course this is based on the assumption that the pose is straight, which seems to be the idea. But his right shoulder would probably be raised by the arm position.I'll also add that this rather strong perspective means a wide angle view / near p.o.v.: this would tend to decrease, not increase, the apparent size of the lower legs and feet. I'll try to find a photo example of this, will post if I find one.

Just beautiful. So much to love about this one!Your research and sketch practice is obviously paying off.My first impression of this was pure success. Very taken by the general impact this guy makes on me as a beholder. Love the colors. And that's important. We want our work to have immediate impact. This does.

But, after my eyes had a moment to take the image in, I then noticed the feet placement. And I decided to do an edit. It does seem like there's too much forced diminishing perspective. Doesn't feel quite right.Then I read Manu's feedback. Tried to address both the feet thing and his points:

Used destructive tools in my edit, so some details got jacked up. But I nonetheless want to toss this in here as a general suggestion of overall body structure alteration.

A question - how much of this guy's design is based on historical/existent soldier garb and how much is dreamed up? I honestly have no idea.I find it so interesting, I'd like to know.

@Night: I wanted to have a folded steel look for the blade, but I guess on that resolution it just doesn't work if you show the gradient, it gets to thick and strong, so I removed it.

@Manupix:I was lazy and hoped no one would actually check it. However I edited it by now.The shoulder pads won't be really affected if the soldier raises the arms, so I was just off - The only thing I actually constructed very carefully with the given horizon line was the head - because yeah the face is... difficult and if it isn#t right the whole thing would be a case for the wastebin.

I went through the trouble and edited it.

Also edited the leg and multiple other small spots, no gif this time.

Also thanks foor your edit Mathias. Honestly I don't really like how the transformed forms came out.What I really liked was how you applied some drapery to the skirt.The legs are prett yhard to place. In this case it luckily is a soldier and can have a stiff soldier pose (well which is also a reason why I drew a soldier) - of course a more dynamic pose might be even better, but it's also a lot more complicated to get right and for the next sprite I have the horizon height established - maybe I will move further away with the vanishing point. But in terms of depth for conversation if I place the chars in groups togehter, it's better to have that a bit more exaggerated to get a more intense feel of depth.Won't really bother with the legs any more - 2 redraws should be enough.Also "for me" there is no point to draw realistically and use 100% realistic proportions. In that case I could get through the trouble and get every part, build it together and take a photograph.Realistic proportions aren't feeling elegant to me, they look just blunt, especially with helmets. That's the only thing where I personally think it's really better to deviate a lot from nature.

A question - how much of this guy's design is based on historical/existent soldier garb and how much is dreamed up? I honestly have no idea.I find it so interesting, I'd like to know.

Practically everything is dreamed up, although everything has a lot of sketched basis material, so that it looks believable. I want to keep the design simplified down to the essential needs, except from a few spots or if I am in need of something really fancy. So there won't be any fancy gears, or applied detail just for the sake to have this detail in. That's also what I dislike the most about "generic" steampunk.

about the pieces:Helm is based on Prussian's Pickelhaube, which were also pretty famous in the Austrian Empire and in general during the First Worldwar.Crow peak is actually based on plague masks from medieval times, although I combined it with a gasmask and the peak is mounted directly to the gorget.Gorget is except the connection piece for the peak historically correct.Cuirass is mostly historically correct, I jsut altered some of the decoration lines - it's a pretty basic form, used in late periods o platemail.Tassets are fiction, I am not sure if the fluting would work that way, if it would be less exaggerated, it could be historically correct.Boots are a mixture out of various army boots.Trousers and coat aren't that characteristical, the shoulder pads of the coat are dreamed up - it's mainly because I like the effect of wide shoulders, but I hate the "Blizzard" or "Warhammer" approach of shoulders, so they are light, but fulfill the look requirements.Fur... was mainly added for visual interest and to show that it's a nordic division, but just from the crafting process it makes sense to wear fur inside-out.Bracers are completely self designed, mainly because there aren't any which allow a good finger movement while not being connected with them, but what is really important if it comes to firing the gun.Ammo measurements are taken from Soviet machineguns, don't have the skills to calculate that, so I went with something fitting.The weapon is my personal design, as far as I calculated it through, it should work - the only thing I am unsure about is, if the barrel of the gun actually would held the stress from a halberd-impact and if it does, when that steel was available - but here I deliberately go without second thought with the fantasy approach and say: it's a game. It would also be quite heavy as halberd, but since that's just an additional function, that could work. The gun part is based on revolver-technology.

That's it.

« Last Edit: September 13, 2014, 10:17:53 pm by Cyangmou »

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"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

great pixel and great progression! Definitely gonna check out your stuff next time i feel the need to render.

A few thoughts:

I can't really tell what's going on with the neck. I feel like a bit more contrast and definition here could help sharpen up the head as a focal point. The hands as well are a little lost. (in particular his left)

The eye naturally gravitates towards these areas first in order to grasp the expression and body language of a figure so defining these parts a little more, even covered in armor as they are, would give the image a little more presence.

I might also suggest adding some rim light on the closest arm in order to separate it a little from the grenades.

This one is more taste but it might be an idea to darken and/or flatten out the shading just a touch on the far arm and leg (or treat it in someway to lower focus). This should make the closer leg and arm stand out a bit more and give the image a little more three-dimensionality. If your going more for a text book illustration feel maybe ignore this point.

Just wanted to stop to say that fur is god damn gorgeous. Seriously, wonderful execution on that. I'm having problems understanding how you worked up to 58 colors on this though. could probably use some palette optimization, but that's really just preference. You've maintained control of your colors very well.

The arms/bracers received in yesterday edit anyways to little love, I edited them and constructed some parts of them new - they are also consistent in terms of size now. I also edited the values of the hands.The other thing I did was to unify the overall shading, especially all seperated armor parts are now unified in terms of value and plane direction.

Well i could reduce the colors down to something like 50 if I really wanted to do that, however the max amount I want to have are 64, and colors in this sprite which are close were also mainly used in Creya's sprite - therefore the overall consistency is for me more important than the lowest palette amount possible.I might go over it once I have more sprites and don't need to add more ramps any more, so that I will gain a better colorweb - but as you said Indigo, the usage of colors used is controlled.

edit: just had the feeling that some weird things were going on with the cast shadow and quickly edited it once more

Also added the latest step to the gif:

« Last Edit: September 14, 2014, 09:47:55 am by Cyangmou »

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"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

and now the final layer of polish - removed a lot of single pixels and cleaned up vast parts of the sprite. Left AA where necessary. It wasn't the goal to remove every single pixel, just wanted to get an overall much cleaner appeareance.

Thanks to everyone once more for their time and help.

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"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

In my eyes, Night's edits here are pretty damn great, so I threw him a cookie. I hope the other mods are fine with that

Hurray! a cookie!

Looks good Cyangmou, I wanted to suggest one more thing; that you make the gauntlets asymmetrical ,as in, one hand would have more protection, probably his left hand in this case, whilst the other hand have less protection (for flexibility), it'd make sense if you think about it, but I don't know how the weapon you designed works, so it might be something completely different with the protection.

I'm also curious about the face proportions as I believe the past WIP's had a larger face for the helmet. The 'beak' also might look like a mouth and if you look at it as a mouth, it might look oddly high and the guy has a very small face. So... I wonder. What happens if this soldier was unmasked? (either that or I'm looking at too many heads with large faces)

I thought I'd just post a tiny little cousin of Sturmkrähe here [similar helmet- shaped like a picklehaube with goggles and beak.. no pike though... way less cool design overall (intended as a fortress guard but I probably wont ever use it anyway)]:Made it a while ago.

Looks good Cyangmou, I wanted to suggest one more thing; that you make the gauntlets asymmetrical ,as in, one hand would have more protection, probably his left hand in this case, whilst the other hand have less protection (for flexibility), it'd make sense if you think about it, but I don't know how the weapon you designed works, so it might be something completely different with the protection.

Asymmetrical armor was just used for shield usage and some tournament cavalry armor.Here the user needs both hands equally, especially if he uses the weapon as halberd.But asymmetrical armor definitely will come.

I'm also curious about the face proportions as I believe the past WIP's had a larger face for the helmet. The 'beak' also might look like a mouth and if you look at it as a mouth, it might look oddly high and the guy has a very small face. So... I wonder. What happens if this soldier was unmasked? (either that or I'm looking at too many heads with large faces)

the top part of a gorget as I used it ends about where the nose ends (depending on the head position) - the uppe rring of the beak connection additionally protects the nasal boneThe beak mainly covers the nose, the bottom of the beak is about at the mouthline (enough air ciirculation possible), so if the soldier disconnects the beak, you would see the nose and the upper part of the mouth.I actually sketched it out in layers.

you still can see can see the chinline and the ball of the mouth in the gorget, big sketch at the left.

I thought I'd just post a tiny little cousin of Sturmkrähe here [similar helmet- shaped like a picklehaube with goggles and beak.. no pike though... way less cool design overall (intended as a fortress guard but I probably wont ever use it anyway)

A cutie =)

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"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."